please note:- the content below is remote from Wikipedia- it has been imported raw for GetWiki

{{About|military actions only|political and social developments, including the origin and aftermath of the war|American Revolution}}{{pp-protected|expiry=indefinite|small=yes}}{{short description|1775â1783 war between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, which won independence as the United States of America}}{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2013}}

Background

Taxation disputes

Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765. Colonists condemned the tax because their rights as Englishmen protected them from being taxed by a Parliament in which they had no elected representatives.BOOK, Gladney, Henry M., No Taxation without Representation: 1768 Petition, Memorial, and Remonstrance, 2014,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150513135503weblink">weblink May 13, 2015, yes, Parliament argued that the colonies were "represented virtually", an idea that was criticized throughout the Empire.BOOK,weblink Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-century Britain â H.T. Dickinson, Books.google.com, 1977, 2015-01-07, 978-0-416-72930-6, 218, Dickinson, H. T, Parliament did repeal the act in 1766; however, it also affirmed its right to pass laws that were binding on the colonies.BOOK, Charles Howard McIlwain, The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation,weblink 1938, 51, 978-1-58477-568-3, From 1767, Parliament began passing legislation to raise revenue for the salaries of civil officials, ensuring their loyalty while inadvertently increasing resentment among the colonists, and opposition soon became widespread.BOOK, Paul Boyer, The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People,weblink 2014, Cengage Learning, 142, etal, 978-1-285-19339-7, Knollenberg, Growth, 48; Thomas, Duties Crisis, 76File:Boston Tea Party Currier colored.jpg|thumb|alt=Two ships in a harbor, one in the distance. On board, men stripped to the waist and wearing feathers in their hair throw crates of tea overboard. A large crowd, mostly men, stands on the dock, waving hats and cheering. A few people wave their hats from windows in a nearby building.|This iconic 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier was entitled "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"; the phrase "Boston Tea PartyBoston Tea PartyEnforcing the acts proved difficult. The seizure of the sloop Liberty in 1768 on suspicions of smuggling triggered a riot. In response, British troops occupied Boston, and Parliament threatened to extradite colonists to face trial in England.Knollenberg, Growth, 69 Tensions rose after the murder of Christopher Seider by a customs official in 1770 and escalated into outrage after British troops fired on civilians in the Boston Massacre.WEB, What was the Boston Massacre?, Boston Massacre Society,weblink In 1772, colonists in Rhode Island boarded and burned a customs schooner. Parliament then repealed all taxes except the one on tea, passing the Tea Act in 1773, attempting to force colonists to buy East India Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to Parliamentary supremacy. The landing of the tea was resisted in all colonies, but the governor of Massachusetts permitted British tea ships to remain in Boston Harbor. So, the Sons of Liberty destroyed the tea chests, an incident that later became known as the "Boston Tea Party".WEB, Boston Tea Party, History.com.,weblink Parliament then passed punitive legislation. It closed Boston Harbor until the tea was paid for and revoked the Massachusetts Charter, taking upon themselves the right to directly appoint the Massachusetts Governor's Council. Additionally, the royal governor was granted powers to undermine local democracy.WEB,weblink Avalon Project â Great Britain : Parliament â The Massachusetts Government Act; May 20, 1774, avalon.law.yale.edu, Ian R. Christie and Benjamin W. Labaree, Empire or Independence, 1760â1776 (New York: Norton, 1976) p. 188. Further measures allowed the extradition of officials for trial elsewhere in the Empire, if the governor felt that a fair trial could not be secured locally. The act's vague reimbursement policy for travel expenses left few with the ability to testify, and colonists argued that it would allow officials to harass them with impunity.BOOK, In the Common Cause: American Response to the Coercive Acts of 1774, Ammerman, David, Norton, 1974, New York, , p. 9 Further laws allowed the governor to billet troops in private property without permission.Ammerman points out that the act only permitted soldiers to be quartered in unoccupied buildingsâalthough they were still private property. (Ammerman, In the Common Cause, 10) The colonists referred to the measures as the "Intolerable Acts", and they argued that both their constitutional rights and their natural rights were being violated, viewing the acts as a threat to all of America.Ammerman, In the Common Cause, 15. The acts were widely opposed, driving neutral parties into support of the Patriots and curtailing Loyalist sentiment.BOOK, Gary B. Nash, Carter Smith, Atlas Of American History,weblink 2007, Infobase Publishing, 64, 978-1-4381-3013-2, BOOK, Peter Knight, Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia,weblink 2003, ABC-CLIO, 184â85, 978-1-57607-812-9,

Colonial response

The colonists responded by establishing the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, effectively removing Crown control of the colony outside Boston. Meanwhile, representatives from twelve colonies{{refn|Georgia did not attend}}Ferling, John. (2003). A Leap in the Dark. Oxford University Press. p. 112. convened the First Continental Congress to respond to the crisis. The Congress narrowly rejected a proposal to create an American parliament to act in concert with the British Parliament; instead, they passed a compact declaring a trade boycott against Britain.WEB, Kindig, Thomas E., Galloway's Plan for the Union of Great Britain and the Colonies,weblink Declaration of Independence, Independence Hall Association, publishing electronically as ushistory.org., March 14, 2015, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 1995, The plan was considered very attractive to most of the members, as it proposed a popularly elected Grand Council which would represent the interests of the colonies as a whole, and would be a continental equivalent to the English Parliament. After a sincere debate, it was rejected by a six to five vote on October 22, 1774. It may have been the arrival of the Suffolk County (Boston) resolutions that killed it., yes,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20150402104121weblink">weblink April 2, 2015, Kramnick, Isaac (ed); Thomas Paine (1982). Common Sense. Penguin Classics. p. 21. The Congress also affirmed that Parliament had no authority over internal American matters, but they were willing to consent to trade regulations for the benefit of the empire,"Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances, cannot properly be represented in the British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed: But, from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the mutual interest of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parliament, as are bonfide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation internal or external, for raising a revenue on the subjects, in America, without their consent." quoted from the Declarations and Resolves of the First Continental Congress October 14, 1774. and they authorized committees and conventions to enforce the boycott. The boycott was effective, as imports from Britain dropped by 97% in 1775 compared to 1774.Parliament refused to yield. In 1775, it declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion and enforced a blockade of the colony.Cogliano, Francis D. Revolutionary America, 1763â1815: A Political History. Routledge, 1999. p. 47Cogliano, Revolutionary America, 47â48 It then passed legislation to limit colonial trade to the British West Indies and the British Isles. Colonial ships were barred from the Newfoundland cod fisheries, a measure which pleased Canadiens but damaged New England's economy. These increasing tensions led to a mutual scramble for ordnance and pushed the colonies toward open war.Alan Axelrod, The Real History of the American Revolution: A New Look at the Past, p. 83 Thomas Gage was the British Commander-in-Chief and military governor of Massachusetts, and he received orders on April 14, 1775 to disarm the local militias.Fischer, p. 76

Course of the war

War breaks out (1775â1776)

(File:USMA01 Major Campaigns of the American Revolutionary War.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|Major Campaigns of the American Revolutionary War)On April 18, 1775, 700 troops were sent to confiscate militia ordnance stored at Concord.Fischer, p. 85Chidsey, p. 6. This is the total size of Smith's force. Fighting broke out, forcing the regulars to conduct a fighting withdrawal to Boston. Overnight, the local militia converged on and laid siege to Boston.Ketchum, pp. 18, 54 On May 25, 4,500 British reinforcements arrived with generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton.Ketchum, pp. 2â9 The British seized the Charlestown peninsula on June 17 after a costly frontal assault,Ketchum pp. 110â11Adams, Charles Francis, "The Battle of Bunker Hill", in American Historical Review (1895â1896), pp. 401â13. leading Howe to replace Gage.Higginbotham (1983), pp. 75â77. Many senior officers were dismayed at the attack, which had gained them little,Ketchum, pp. 183, 198â209 while Gage wrote to London stressing the need for a large army to suppress the revolt.BOOK, Hugh F. Rankin, ed., Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those who Fought and Lived it,weblink 1987, Da Capo Press, 63, 978-0-306-80307-9, On July 3, George Washington took command of the Continental Army besieging Boston. Howe made no effort to attack, much to Washington's surprise.Lecky, William Edward Hartpole, A History of England in the Eighteenth CentuIry (1882), pp. 449â50. A plan was rejected to assault the city,McCullough, p. 53 and the Americans instead fortified Dorchester Heights in early March 1776 with heavy artillery captured from a raid on Fort Ticonderoga.Frothingham, pp. 100â01 The British were permitted to withdraw unmolested on March 17, and they sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Washington then moved his army to New York.BOOK, John R. Alden, A History of the American Revolution,weblink 1989, Da Capo Press, 188â90, 978-0-306-80366-6, Starting in August 1775, American Privateers began to raid villages in Nova Scotia, first at Saint John, then Charlottetown and Yarmouth. They continued in 1776 at Canso and then a land assault on Fort Cumberland.(File:British Army in Concord Detail.jpg|thumb|left|The British marching to Concord)Meanwhile, British officials in Quebec began lobbying Indian tribes to support them,Smith (1907), vol 1, p. 293 while the Americans urged them to maintain their neutrality.Glatthaar (2006), p. 91Glatthaar (2006), p. 93 In April 1775, Congress feared an Anglo-Indian attack from Canada and authorized an invasion of Quebec. Quebec had a largely Francophone population and had been under British rule for only 12 years,{{refn|Quebec was officially ceded in 1763}} and the Americans expected that they would welcome being liberated from the British.Smith (1907), vol 1, p. 242BOOK, Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero, Michael P., Gabriel, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 2002, Gabriel,weblink 978-0-8386-3931-3, , p. 141Mark R. Anderson, The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony: America's War of Liberation in Canada, 1774â1776 (University Press of New England; 2013). The Americans attacked Quebec City on December 31 after an arduous marchAlden, The American Revolution (1954) p. 206 but were defeated.Willard Sterne Randall, "Benedict Arnold at Quebec", MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History, Summer 1990, Vol. 2, Issue 4, pp. 38â49.Davies, Blodwen (1951). Quebec: Portrait of a Province. Greenberg. p. 32.Carleton's men had won a quick and decisive victory After a loose siege, the Americans withdrew on May 6. 1776.Lanctot (1967), pp. 141â46Thomas A. Desjardin, Through a Howling Wilderness: Benedict Arnold's March to Quebec, 1775 (2006). A failed counter-attack on June 8 ended American operations in Quebec.Stanley, pp. 127â28 However, the British could not conduct an aggressive pursuit because of American ships on Lake Champlain. On October 11, the British defeated the American squadron, forcing them to withdraw to Ticonderoga and ending the campaign. The invasion cost the Patriots their support in British public opinion,Watson (1960), p. 203. while aggressive anti-Loyalist policies diluted Canadian support.Arthur S. Lefkowitz, Benedict Arnold's Army: The 1775 American Invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War (2007). The Patriots continued to view Quebec as a strategic aim, though no further attempts to invade were ever made.Smith (1907), volume 2, pp. 459â552File:Canadian militiamen and British soldiers repulse the American assault at Sault-au-Matelot.jpg|thumb|British soldiers and Provincial militiamen repulse the American assault at Sault-au-Matelot, CanadaCanadaIn Virginia, Royal governorLord Dunmore had attempted to disarm the militia as tensions increased, although no fighting broke out.Selby and Higginbotham, p. 2 He issued a proclamation on November 7, 1775 promising freedom for slaves who fled their Patriot masters to fight for the Crown.BOOK, Levy, Andrew, The First Emancipator: Slavery, Religion, and the Quiet Revolution of Robert Carter, Jan 9, 2007, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 978-0-375-76104-1, 74, BOOK, Scribner, Robert L., Robert L. Scribner, Revolutionary Virginia, the Road to Independence, University of Virginia Press, 1983, xxiv, 978-0-8139-0748-2, Dunmore's troops were overwhelmed by Patriots at Great Bridge, and Dunmore fled to naval ships anchored off Norfolk. Subsequent negotiations broke down, so Dunmore ordered the ships to destroy the town.Russell, p. 73Fighting broke out on November 19 in South Carolina between Loyalist and Patriot militias,McCrady, p. 89 and the Loyalists were subsequently driven out of the colony.BOOK, Landrum, John Belton O'Neall, Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina, Shannon, 1897, Greenville, SC, 187392639,weblink , pp. 80â81 Loyalists were recruited in North Carolina to reassert colonial rule in the South, but they were decisively defeated and Loyalist sentiment was subdued.BOOK, David K, Wilson, The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775â1780, University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 2005, 978-1-57003-573-9, 56951286, , p. 33 A troop of British regulars set out to reconquer South Carolina and launched an attack on Charleston on June 28, 1776,Hibbert, C: Rebels and Redcoats, p. 106 but it failed and effectively left the South in Patriot control until 1780.Kepner, F, "A British View of the Siege of Charleston, 1776", The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 11, No. 1. (Feb. 1945), p. 94 Jstor linkBicheno, H: Rebels and Redcoats, pp. 154, 158The shortage of gunpowder had led Congress to authorize an expedition against the Bahamas colony in the British West Indies in order to secure ordnance there.BOOK, Esek Hopkins, commander-in-chief of the continental navy during the American Revolution, 1775 to 1778, Edward, Field, 1898, Preston & Rounds, Field,weblink 3430958, Providence, , p. 104 On March 3, 1776, the Americans landed after a bloodless exchange of fire, and the local militia offered no resistance.BOOK, Essays in the economic history of the Atlantic world, John J, McCusker, McCusker, Routledge, 1997, 978-0-415-16841-0, London, 470415294, , pp. 185â87 They confiscated all the supplies that they could load and sailed away on March 17.Riley, pp. 101â02Field, pp. 117â18 The squadron reached New London, Connecticut on April 8, after a brief skirmish with the Royal Navy frigate HMS Glasgow on April 6.Field, pp. 120â25

Political reactions

After fighting began, Congress launched a final attempt to avert war, which Parliament rejected as insincere.WEB,weblink Declaration of Taking Up Arms: Resolutions of the Second Continental Congress, Constitution Society, 2013-09-23, King George then issued a Proclamation of Rebellion on August 23, 1775, which only served to embolden the colonists in their determination to become independent.Ketchum, p. 211 After a speech by the King, Parliament rejected coercive measures on the colonies by 170 votes.Maier, American Scripture, 25. The text of the 1775 king's speech is online, published by the American Memory project. British Tories refused to compromise,Middlekauff, Glorious Cause, 168; Ferling, Leap in the Dark, 123â24. while Whigs argued that current policy would drive the colonists towards independence.Maier, American Scripture, 25 Despite opposition, the King himself began micromanaging the war effort.Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, The Men who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (Yale UP, 2013). The Irish Parliament pledged to send troops to America,BOOK, Frank A. Biletz, Historical Dictionary of Ireland,weblink 2013, Scarecrow Press, 8, 9780810870918, and Irish Catholics were allowed to enlist in the army for the first time.BOOK, Lecky, A History of England,weblink 162â65, 1891, Irish Protestants favored the Americans, while Catholics favored the King.BOOK, Vincent Morley, Irish Opinion and the American Revolution, 1760â1783,weblink 2002, Cambridge UP, 154â57, 9781139434560, The initial hostilities provided a sobering military lesson for the British, causing them to rethink their views on colonial military capability.Ketchum, pp. 208â09Frothingham (1903), p. 298 The weak British response gave the Patriots the advantage, and the British lost control over every colony.BOOK, John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolution,weblink 1959, Stanford UP, 410â12, The army had been deliberately kept small in England since 1688 to prevent abuses of power by the King.Scheer, p. 64 Parliament secured treaties with small German states for additional troopsWEB,weblink The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war, Lowell, Edward, Jackson, July 23, 1884, library.si.edu, and sent an army of 32,000 men to America after a year, the largest that it had ever sent outside Europe at the time.BOOK, David Smith, New York 1776: The Continentals' First Battle,weblink 2012, Osprey Publishing, 21â23, 9781782004431, In the colonies, the success of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense had boosted public support for independence.Christie and Labaree, Empire or Independence, 270; Maier, American Scripture, 31â32.Maier, American Scripture, 33â34 On July 2, Congress voted in favor of independence with twelve affirmatives and one abstention,Boyd, Evolution, 19 issuing its declaration on July 4.Maier, American Scripture, 160â61 Washington read the declaration to his men and the citizens of New York on July 9,Fischer (2004), p. 29. invigorating the crowd to tear down a lead statue of the King and melting it to make bullets.Maier, American Scripture, 156â57 British Tories criticized the signatories for not extending the same standards of equality to slaves.Patriots followed independence with the Test Laws, requiring residents to swear allegiance to the state in which they lived,Encyclopedia of the American Revolution Mark M. Botner III, (1974) p. 1094. intending to root out neutrals or opponents to independence. Failure to do so meant possible imprisonment, exile, or even death.Liberty's Exiles; American Loyalists & the Revolutionary World. Maya Jasanoff (2011) American Tories were barred from public office, forbidden from practising medicine and law, forced to pay increased taxes, or even barred from executing wills or becoming guardians to orphans.The American Revolution; Colin Bonwick (1991) p. 152Encyclopedia of American History. Richard B. Morris and Jeffrey B. Morris, eds., 6th Edition (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1982), p. 130. Congress enabled states to confiscate Loyalist property to fund the war.Flight of the Tories from the Republic, The Tories of the American Revolution. North Callahan (1967) p. 120. Some Quakers who remained neutral had their property confiscated. States later prevented Loyalists from collecting any debts that they were owed.Land confiscation Records of north Carolina, Vol. 1 (1779â1800) Stewart Dunaway, p. 9

British counter-offensive (1776â1777)

File:BattleofLongisland.jpg|thumb|American soldiers in combat at the Battle of Long IslandBattle of Long IslandAfter regrouping at Halifax, William Howe determined to take the fight to the Americans.Fischer, pp. 76â78 He set sail in June 1776 and began landing troops on Staten Island near the entrance to New York Harbor on July 2. Due to poor military intelligence, Washington split his army to positions on Manhattan Island and across the East River in western Long Island,Fischer, pp. 89, 381 and an informal attempt to negotiate peace was rejected by the Americans.Ketchum (1973), p. 104 On August 27, Howe outflanked Washington and forced him back to Brooklyn Heights. Howe restrained his subordinates from pursuit, opting to besiege Washington instead.Adams, Charles Francis, "Battle of Long Island", in American Historical Review (1895â1896), p. 657.Washington withdrew to Manhattan without any losses in men or ordnance.Fischer, pp. 88â102 Following the withdrawal, the Staten Island Peace Conference failed to negotiate peace, as the British delegates did not possess the authority to recognize independence.Ketchum (1973), p. 117BOOK, Thomas J. McGuire, Stop the Revolution: America in the Summer of Independence and the Conference for Peace,weblink 2011, Stackpole Books, 165â66, 9780811745086, Howe then seized control of New York City on September 15, and unsuccessfully engaged the Americans the following day.Fischer, pp. 102â07 He attempted to encircle Washington, but the Americans successfully withdrew. On October 28, the British fought an indecisive action against Washington, in which Howe declined to attack Washington's army, instead concentrating his efforts upon a hill that was of no strategic value.Fischer (2004), pp. 102â11.Barnet Schecter, The battle for New York: The city at the heart of the American Revolution (2002).(File:Forcing a Passage of the Hudson.jpg|thumb|left|British warships forcing passage of the Hudson River)Washington's retreat left his forces isolated, and the British captured an American fortification on November 16, taking 3,000 prisoners and amounting to what one historian terms "the most disastrous defeat of the entire war".Ketchum pp. 111, 130 Washington's army fell back four days later.Fischer, pp. 109â25 Henry Clinton then captured Newport, Rhode Island, an operation which he opposed, feeling that the 6,000 troops assigned to him could have been better employed in the pursuit of Washington.BOOK, Ridpath, John Clark, The new complete history of the United States of America, Volume 6,weblink Jones Brothers, 1915, 2140537, Cincinnati, , p. 2531BOOK, David McCullough, 1776,weblink 2006, 122, 9781451658255, Stedman, Charles, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794), p. 221. The American prisoners were then sent to the infamous prison ships in which more American soldiers and sailors died of disease and neglect than died in every battle of the war combined.Larry Lowenthal, Hell on the East River: British Prison Ships in the American Revolution (2009). Charles Cornwallis pursued Washington, but Howe ordered him to halt, and Washington marched away unmolested.BOOK, Mary Tucker, Washington Crossing the Delaware,weblink March 1, 2002, Lorenz Educational Press, 22â23, 9780787785642, Stedman, Charles, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794), p. 223.The outlook of the American cause was bleak; the army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men and would be reduced further when the enlistments expired at the end of the year.Schecter, pp. 266â67 Popular support wavered, morale ebbed away, and Congress abandoned Philadelphia.Fischer, pp. 138â42 Loyalist activity surged in the wake of the American defeat, especially in New York.File:Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze, MMA-NYC, 1851.jpg|thumb|Emanuel Leutze's famous 1851 depiction of Washington Crossing the Delaware]]News of the campaign was well received in Britain. Festivities took place in London, public support reached a peak,BOOK, Lecky, A History of England,weblink 70â78, 1891, {{Harvnb|McCullough|2006|p=195}}. and the King awarded the Order of the Bath to William Howe. The successes led to predictions that the British could win within a year.Ketchum (1973), pp. 191, 269 The American defeat revealed what one writer views as Washington's strategic deficiencies, such as dividing a numerically weaker army in the face of a stronger one, his inexperienced staff misreading the situation, and his troops fleeing in disorder when fighting began.Charles Francis Adams, "The Battle of Long Island," American Historical Review Vol. 1, No. 4 (Jul. 1896), pp. 650â70 in JSTOR In the meantime, the British entered winter quarters and were in a good place to resume campaigning.Schecter, pp. 259â63On December 25, 1776, Washington stealthily crossed the Delaware River, and his army overwhelmed the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey the following morning, taking 900 prisoners.Fischer p. 254. Casualty numbers vary slightly with the Hessian forces, usually between 21â23 killed, 80â95 wounded, and 890â920 captured (including the wounded).Fischer (2004), pp. 206â59. The decisive victory rescued the army's flagging morale and gave a new hope to the cause for independence.BOOK, Wood, W. J, Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775â1781, Da Capo Press, 1995, 978-0-306-80617-9, {{ISBN|0306813297}} (2003 paperback reprint), pp. 72â74 Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton, but his efforts were repulsed on January 2.Fischer p. 307Ketchum p. 286 Washington outmanoeuvred Cornwallis that night, and defeated his rearguard the following day. The victories proved instrumental in convincing the French and Spanish that the Americans were worthwhile allies, as well as recovering morale in the army.Ketchum (1973), pp. 388â89Schecter, p. 268McCullough p. 290 Washington entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey on January 6,Lengel p. 208 though a protracted guerrilla conflict continued.Fischer (2004), pp. 345â58. While encamped, Howe made no attempt to attack, much to Washington's amazement.Lecky, William, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vol. IV (1891), p. 57.

British northern strategy fails (1777â1778)

In December 1776, John Burgoyne returned to London to set strategy with Lord George Germain. Burgoyne's plan was to establish control of the Champlain-George-Hudson route from New York to Quebec, isolating New England. Efforts could then be concentrated on the southern colonies, where it was believed Loyalist support was in abundance.Ketchum (1997), p. 84File:Surrender of General Burgoyne.jpg|thumb|left|"The Surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de ValliÃ¨re 4-pounder.]]Burgoyne's plan was to lead an army along Lake Champlain, while a strategic diversion advanced along the Mohawk River, and both would rendezvous at Albany.Ketchum (1997), p. 84. Burgoyne set out on June 14, 1777, quickly capturing Ticonderoga on July 5. Leaving 1,300 men behind as a garrison, Burgoyne continued the advance. Progress was slow; the Americans blocked roads, destroyed bridges, dammed streams and denuded the area of food.Ketchum (1997), pp. 244â49 Meanwhile, Barry St. Ledger's diversionary column laid siege to Fort Stanwix. St. Ledger withdrew to Quebec on August 22 after his Indian support abandoned him. On August 16, a Hessian foraging expedition was soundly defeated at Bennington, and more than 700 troops were captured.BOOK, The Battle of Bennington: Soldiers and Civilians, Michael P., Gabriel, The History Press, 2012, Meanwhile, the vast majority of Burgoyne's Indian support abandoned him and Howe informed Burgoyne he would launch his campaign on Philadelphia as planned, and would be unable to render aid.Ketchum (1997), p. 283Burgoyne decided to continue the advance. On September 19, he attempted to flank the American position, and (Battles of Saratoga#First Saratoga: Battle of Freeman's Farm (September 19)|clashed at Freeman's Farm). The British won, but at the cost of 600 casualties. Burgoyne then dug in, but suffered a constant haemorrhage of deserters, and critical supplies were running low.Ketchum (1997), pp. 337â78. On October 7, a British reconnaissance in force against the American lines was (Battles of Saratoga#Second Saratoga: Battle of Bemis Heights (October 7)|repulsed with heavy losses). Burgoyne then withdrew with the Americans in pursuit, and by October 13, he was surrounded. With no hope of relief and supplies exhausted, Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, and 6,222 soldiers became prisoners of the Americans.Ketchum (1997), pp. 403â25. The decisive success spurred France to enter the war as an ally of the United States, securing the final elements needed for victory over Britain, that of foreign assistance.Edmund Morgan, The Birth of the Republic: 1763â1789 (1956) pp. 82â83Higginbotham (1983), pp. 188â98File:Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge.jpg|thumb|Washington and Lafayette inspect the troops at Valley ForgeValley ForgeMeanwhile, Howe launched his campaign against Washington, though his initial efforts to bring him to battle in June 1777 failed.Stedman, Charles, The History of the Origin, Progress and Termination of the American War Volume I (1794), pp. 287â89. Howe declined to attack Philadelphia overland via New Jersey, or by sea via the Delaware Bay, even though both options would have enabled him to assist Burgoyne if necessary. Instead, he took his army on a time-consuming route through the Chesapeake Bay, leaving him completely unable to assist Burgoyne. This decision was so difficult to understand, Howe's critics accused him of treason.Adams, Charles Francis. Campaign of 1777Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Volume 44 (1910â11) pp. 25â26Howe outflanked and defeated Washington on September 11, though he failed to follow-up on the victory and destroy his army.Higginbotham, The War of American Independence, pp. 181â86Adams, Charles Francis. "Campaign of 1777", Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 44 (1910â11), p. 43. A British victory at Willistown left Philadelphia defenceless, and Howe captured the city unopposed on September 26. Howe then moved 9,000 men to Germantown, north of Philadelphia.Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. (2 volumes. New York: Macmillan, 1952.) History of land battles in North America. p. 362 Washington launched a surprise attack on Howe's garrison on October 4, which was eventually repulsed.Stephen R. Taaffe, The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777â1778 (2003), pp. 95â100 except and text search. Again, Howe did not follow-up on his victory, leaving the American army intact and able to fight.Rose, Michael (2007), Washington's War: From Independence to Iraq, weblink, Retrieved on May 24, 2017 Later, after several days of probing American defences at White Marsh, Howe inexplicably ordered a retreat to Philadelphia, astonishing both sides.McGuire, p. 254 Howe ignored the vulnerable American rear, where an attack could have deprived Washington of his baggage and supplies.BOOK, Cadwalader, Richard McCall, Observance of the One Hundred and Twenty-third Anniversary of the Evacuation of Philadelphia by the British Army. Fort Washington and the Encampment of White Marsh, November 2, 1777:,weblink 1901, 20â28, January 7, 2016, On December 19, Washington's army entered winter quarters at Valley Forge. Poor conditions and supply problems resulted in the deaths of some 2,500 troops.Freedman, 2008, pp. 1â30 Howe, only 20 miles (32 km) away, made no effort to attack, which critics observed could have ended the war.Noel Fairchild Busch, Winter Quarters: George Washington and the Continental Army at Valley Forge (Liveright, 1974).weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20120619002020weblink">"A Concluding Commentary" Supplying Washington's Army (1981)."The Winning of Independence, 1777â1783"American Military History Volume I (2005).The Continental Army was put through a new training program, supervised by Baron von Steuben, introducing the most modern Prussian methods of drilling.Paul Douglas Lockhart, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army (2008). Meanwhile, Howe resigned and was replaced by Henry Clinton on May 24, 1778.BOOK, Frances H. Kennedy, The American Revolution: A Historical Guidebook,weblink 2014, Oxford UP, 163, 9780199324224, Clinton received orders to abandon Philadelphia and fortify New York following France's entry into the war. On June 18, the British departed Philadelphia, with the reinvigorated Americans in pursuit.Text incorporated from Valley Forge National Historical Park website, which is in the public domain. The two armies fought at Monmouth Court House on June 28, with the Americans holding the field, greatly boosting morale and confidence.Freedman, 2008, pp. 70â83 By July, both armies were back in the same positions they had been two years prior.

War in the South (1778â1781)

File:Sullivans-island-1050x777.jpg|thumb|British troops besiege Charleston in 1780, by Alonzo ChappelAlonzo ChappelThe British turned their attention to conquering the South in 1778, after Loyalists in London assured them of a strong Loyalist base there. A southern campaign also had the advantage of keeping the Royal Navy closer to the Caribbean, where it would be needed to defend lucrative colonies against the Franco-Spanish fleets.Henry Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (2000). On December 29, 1778, an expeditionary corps from New York captured Savannah, and British troops then moved inland to recruit Loyalist support.BOOK, Morrill, Dan, Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution, Nautical & Aviation Publishing, 1993, Morrill, , pp. 46â47 There was a promising initial turnout in early 1779, but then a large Loyalist militia was defeated at Kettle Creek on February 14 and they had to recognize their dependence upon the British. The British, however, defeated Patriot militia at Brier Creek on March 3,Morrill (1993), pp. 48â50 and then launched an abortive assault on Charleston, South Carolina. The operation became notorious for its high degree of looting by British troops, enraging both Loyalists and Patriot colonists.BOOK, The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775â1780, David K, Wilson, University of South Carolina Press, 2005, 978-1-57003-573-9, Columbia, SC, 232001108, , p. 112In October, a combined Franco-American effort failed to recapture Savannah. In May 1780, Henry Clinton captured Charleston, taking over 5,000 prisoners and effectively destroying the Continental Army in the south. Organized American resistance in the region collapsed when Banastre Tarleton defeated the withdrawing Americans at Waxhaws on May 29.John W. Gordon and John Keegan, South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History (2007).(File:Cowpens.jpg|thumb|right|American and British cavalry clash at the Battle of Cowpens; from an 1845 painting by William Ranney)Clinton returned to New York, leaving Charles Cornwallis in command in Charleston to oversee the southern war effort. Far fewer Loyalists than expected joined him. In the interim, the war was carried on by Patriot militias who effectively suppressed Loyalists by winning victories in Fairfield County, Lincolnton, Huck's Defeat, Stanly County, and Lancaster County.Congress appointed Horatio Gates, victor at Saratoga, to lead the American effort in the south. He suffered a major defeat at Camden on August 16, 1780, setting the stage for Cornwallis to invade North Carolina.Hugh F. Rankin, North Carolina in the American Revolution (1996). The British attempted to subjugate the countryside, and Patriot militia continued to fight against them, so Cornwallis dispatched troops to raise Loyalist forces to cover his left flank as he moved north.BOOK, The Road To Guilford Court House: The American Revolution in the Carolinas, Buchanan, John, John Wiley & Sons, 1997, 978-0-471-32716-5, New York, , p. 202 This wing of Cornwallis' army was virtually destroyed on October 7, irreversibly breaking Loyalist support in the Carolinas. Cornwallis subsequently aborted his advance and retreated back into South Carolina.Buchanan, p. 241 In the interim, Washington replaced Gates with his trusted subordinate, Nathanael Greene.Buchanan, p. 275Greene was unable to confront the British directly, so he dispatched a force under Daniel Morgan to recruit additional troops. Morgan then defeated the cream of the British army under Tarleton on January 17, 1781 at Cowpens. Cornwallis was criticized for having detached a substantial part of his army without adequate support,Clinton, H.; The American Rebellion; 1783 but he advanced into North Carolina despite the setbacks, gambling that he would receive substantial Loyalist support there. Greene evaded combat with Cornwallis, instead wearing his army down through a protracted war of attrition.Buchanan, p. 326By March, Greene's army had increased in size enough that he felt confident in facing Cornwallis. The two armies engaged at Guilford Courthouse on March 15; Greene was beaten, but Cornwallis' army suffered irreplaceable casualties.WEB,weblink Battle of Guilford Courthouse, Nick, McGrath, George Washingtonâs Mount Vernon: Digital Encyclopedia, Mount Vernon Ladiesâ Association, January 26, 2017, In three hours, Cornwallisâs army took possession of the field, but it was a Pyrrhic victory.... Cornwallis could not afford the casualties his army sustained, and withdrew to Wilmington. By doing so, Cornwallis ceded control of the countryside to the Continentals., Compounding this, far fewer Loyalists were joining than the British had previously expected.Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (2000). Cornwallis' casualties were such that he was compelled to retreat to Wilmington for reinforcement, leaving the Patriots in control of the interior of the Carolinas and Georgia.Greene then proceeded to reclaim the South. The American troops suffered a reversal at Hobkirk's Hill on April 25;Greene, Francis Vinton D. General Greene, Appleton and Company 1893, p. 241 nonetheless, they continued to dislodge strategic British posts in the area, capturing Fort WatsonBOOK, This Destructive War, John, Pancake, University of Alabama Press, 1985, 978-0-8173-0191-0, and Fort Motte.BOOK, Founding Fighters: The Battlefield Leaders who Made American Independence, Alan, C. Cate, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, , p. 162 Augusta was the last major British outpost in the South outside of Charleston and Savannah, but the Americans reclaimed possession of it on June 6.BOOK, Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War, Reynolds, Jr., William R., 2012, McFarland & Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC, 978-0-7864-6694-8, A British force clashed with American troops at Eutaw Springs on September 8 in a final effort to stop Greene, but the British casualties were so high that they withdrew to Charleston.BOOK, This Destructive War, John, Pancake, University of Alabama Press, 1985, 978-0-8173-0191-0, , p. 221 Minor skirmishes continued in the Carolinas until the end of the war, and British troops were effectively confined to Charleston and Savannah for the remainder of the conflict.Bicheno, H: Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War, London, 2003

British defeat in America (1781)

File:BattleOfVirginiaCapes.jpg|thumb|The French (left) and British (right) lines exchange fire at the Battle of the ChesapeakeBattle of the ChesapeakeCornwallis had discovered that the majority of American supplies in the Carolinas were passing through Virginia, and he had written to both Lord Germain and Clinton detailing his intentions to invade. Cornwallis believed that a successful campaign there would cut supplies to Greene's army and precipitate a collapse of American resistance in the South. Clinton strongly opposed the plan, favoring a campaign farther north in the Chesapeake Bay region.Cornwallis; An Answer to Sir Henry Clinton's Narrative. Note: Cornwallis wrote this pamphlet shortly after the war in explanation of his actions. Lord Germain wrote to Cornwallis to approve his plan and neglected to include Clinton in the decision-making, even though Clinton was Cornwallis' superior officer,Cornwallis Correspondence, Public Record Office and Cornwallis then decided to move into Virginia without informing Clinton.Clinton, H.; The American Rebellion. Note: This lack of notification was one of Clinton's main arguments in his own defense in the controversy which followed the surrender at Yorktown. Clinton, however, had failed to construct a coherent strategy for British operations in 1781,BOOK, Grainger, John, The Battle of Yorktown, 1781: a Reassessment, Boydell Press, 2005, Woodbridge, NJ, 978-1-84383-137-2, 232006312, , p. 29 owing to his difficult relationship with his naval counterpart Marriot Arbuthnot.BOOK, Billias, George, George Washington's Generals and Opponents: their Exploits and Leadership, Da Capo Press, 1969, New York, 978-0-306-80560-8, 229206429, , pp. 267â75Following the calamitous operations at Newport and Savannah, French planners realized that closer cooperation with the Americans was required to achieve success.BOOK, Dull, Jonathan R, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774â1787, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1975, Dull, 978-0-691-06920-3, 1500030, , pp. 247â48 The French fleet led by the Comte de Grasse had received discretionary orders from Paris to assist joint efforts in the north if naval support was needed.Grainger, p. 40Dull, p. 241 Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau discussed their options. Washington pushed for an attack on New York, while Rochambeau preferred a strike in Virginia where the British were less well-established and thus easier to defeat.Ketchum, p. 139 Franco-American movements around New York caused Clinton a great deal of anxiety, fearing an attack on the city. His instructions were vague to Cornwallis during this time, rarely forming explicit orders. However, Clinton did instruct Cornwallis to establish a fortified naval base and to transfer troops to the north to defend New York.Grainger, pp. 43â44 Cornwallis dug in at Yorktown and awaited the Royal Navy.Michael Cecere, Great Things are Expected from the Virginians: Virginia in the American Revolution (2009).File:Surrender of Lord Cornwallis.jpg|thumb|right|Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by John TrumbullJohn TrumbullWashington still favored an assault on New York, but he acquiesced to the French when they opted to send their fleet to their preferred target of Yorktown. In August, the combined Franco-American army moved south to coordinate with de Grasse in defeating Cornwallis.BOOK, Johnston, Henry Phelps,weblink The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781, New York, Harper & Bros, 1881, 426009, , p. 101 The British lacked sufficient naval resources to effectively counter the French, but they dispatched a fleet under Thomas Graves to assist Cornwallis and attempt to gain naval dominance.JOURNAL, Middleton, Richard, 2014, Naval Resources and the British Defeat at Yorktown, 1781, The Mariner's Mirror, 100, 1, 29â43, 10.1080/00253359.2014.866373, On September 5, the French fleet decisively defeated Graves, giving the French control of the seas around Yorktown and cutting off Cornwallis from reinforcements and relief.BOOK, harv, Duffy, Michael, Parameters of British Naval Power, 1650â1850,weblink 8 February 2016, 1992, University of Exeter Press, 978-0-85989-385-5, , p. 110 Despite the continued urging of his subordinates,Ketchum, p. 205 Cornwallis made no attempt to break out and engage the Franco-American army before it had established siege works, expecting that reinforcements would arrive from New York, and the Franco-American army laid siege to Yorktown on September 28.Ketchum, p. 214 Cornwallis continued to think that relief was imminent from Clinton, and he abandoned his outer defenses which were immediately occupied by American troopsâserving to hasten his subsequent defeat.BOOK, Lengel, Edward, Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington, New York, Random House Paperbacks, 2005, 978-0-8129-6950-4,weblink , p. 337 The British then failed in an attempt to break out of the siege across the river at Gloucester Point when a storm hit.BOOK, Davis, Burke, The Campaign that Won America, New York, HarperCollins, 2007, 978-0-8368-5393-3, , p. 237 Cornwallis and his subordinates were under increasing bombardment and facing dwindling supplies; they agreed that their situation was untenable and negotiated a surrender on October 17, 1781,BOOK, Fleming, Thomas, The Perils of Peace, New York, The Dial Press, 1970, 978-0-06-113911-6, , p. 16 and 7,685 soldiers became prisoners of the Americans.Greene, pp. 307â08 The same day as the surrender, 6,000 troops under Clinton had departed New York, sailing to relieve Yorktown.Ketchum, p. 241Richard Ferrie, The World Turned Upside Down: George Washington and the Battle of Yorktown (1999).

North Ministry collapses

On 25 November 1781, news arrived in London of the surrender at Yorktown. The Whig opposition gained traction in Parliament, and a motion was proposed on December 12 to end the war which was defeated by only one vote. On 27 February 1782, the House voted against further war in America by 19 votes.BOOK, Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons 1754â1790,weblink 1985, 246, 9780436304200, Lord Germain was dismissed and a vote of no confidence was passed against North. The Rockingham Whigs came to power and opened negotiations for peace. Rockingham died and was succeeded by the Earl of Shelburne. Despite their defeat, the British still had 30,000 troops garrisoned in New York, Charleston, and Savannah.Mackesy, p. 435. Henry Clinton was recalled and was replaced by Guy Carleton who was under orders to suspend offensive operations.Greene, p. 325

Peace of Paris

File:Treaty of Paris by Benjamin West 1783.jpg|thumb|Benjamin WestBenjamin WestFollowing the surrender at Yorktown, the Whig party came to power in Britain and began opening negotiations for a cessation of hostilities. While peace negotiations were being undertaken, British troops in America were restricted from launching further offensives. Prime Minister the Earl of Shelburne was reluctant to accept American independence as a prerequisite for peace, as the British were aware that the French economy was nearly bankrupt, and reinforcements sent to the West Indies could potentially reverse the situation there. He preferred that the colonies accept Dominion status within the Empire, though a similar offer had been rejected by the Americans in 1778.BOOK,weblink British friends of the American Revolution, Jerome R. Reich, 121, M.E. Sharpe, 1997, 978-0-7656-3143-5, Negotiations soon began in Paris.The Americans initially demanded that Quebec be ceded to them as spoils of war, a proposal that was dropped when Shelburne accepted American demands for recognition of independence. On April 19, 1782, the Dutch formally recognized the United States as a sovereign power, enhancing American leverage at the negotiations. Spain initially impeded the negotiations, refusing to enter into peace talks until Gibraltar had been captured. The Comte de Vergennes proposed that American territory be confined to the east of the Appalachians; Britain would have sovereignty over the area north of the Ohio River, below which an Indian barrier state would be established under Spanish control. The United States fiercely opposed the proposal.Dwight L. Smith, "A North American Neutral Indian Zone: Persistence of a British Idea." Northwest Ohio Quarterly 61#2â4 (1989): 46â63.File:Evacuation Day and Washington's Triumphal Entry.jpg|thumb|left|Washington enters New York in triumph following the British evacuation of America.]]The Americans skirted their allies, recognizing that more favorable terms would be found in London. They negotiated directly with Shelburne, who hoped to make Britain a valuable trading partner of America at the expense of France. To this end, Shelburne offered to cede all the land east of the Mississippi River, north of Florida, and south of Quebec,William E. Lass (1980). Minnesota's Boundary with Canada: Its Evolution Since 1783. Minnesota Historical Society. pp. 63â70. while also allowing American fishermen access to the rich Newfoundland fishery.Jonathan R. Dull (1987). A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. pp. 144â51. Shelburne was hoping to facilitate the growth of the American population, creating lucrative markets that Britain could exploit at no administrative cost to London. As Vergennes commented, "the English buy peace rather than make it".Quote from Thomas Paterson, J. Garry Clifford and Shane J. Maddock, American foreign relations: A history, to 1920 (2009) vol 1 p. 20Throughout the negotiations, Britain never consulted her American Indian allies, forcing them to reluctantly accept the treaty. However, the subsequent tension erupted into conflicts between the Indians and the young United States, the largest being the Northwest Indian War.Benn (1993), p. 17. Britain continued trying to create an Indian buffer state in the American Midwest as late as 1814 during the War of 1812.Dwight L. Smith, "A North American Neutral Indian Zone: Persistence of a British Idea" Northwest Ohio Quarterly 1989 61(2â4): 46â63.BOOK, Francis M. Carroll, A Good and Wise Measure: The Search for the Canadian-American Boundary, 1783â1842,weblink 2001, U of Toronto Press, 24, 978-0-8020-8358-6, Britain negotiated separate treaties with Spain, France, and the Dutch Republic.Frances G, Davenport and Charles O. Paullin, European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies (1917) vol 1 p. vii Gibraltar proved to be a stumbling block in the peace talks; Spain offered to relinquish their conquests in West Florida, Menorca, and the BahamasDull, p. 321 in exchange for Gibraltar, terms which Shelburne steadfastly refused. Shelburne instead offered to cede East Florida, West Florida, and Menorca if Spain would relinquish the claim on Gibraltar, terms which were reluctantly accepted.Dull, pp. 327â31 However, in the long-term, the new territorial gains were of little value to Spain.Lawrence S. Kaplan, "The Treaty of Paris, 1783: A Historiographical Challenge", International History Review, September 1983, Vol. 5, Issue 3, pp. 431â42. France's only net gains were the island of Tobago in the Caribbean and Senegal in Africa, after agreeing to return all other colonial conquests to British sovereignty.Stone, Bailey. The Genesis of the French Revolution: A Global-historical Interpretation, UK, Cambridge University Press (1994). Britain returned Dutch Caribbean territories to Dutch sovereignty, in exchange for free trade rights in the Dutch East IndiesGerald Newman and Leslie Ellen Brown, Britain in the Hanoverian age, 1714â1837 (1997) p. 533Edler 2001, 181â89 and control of the Indian port of Negapatnam.BOOK, Gazetteer of South India, Volume 1, W., Francis,weblink Mittal Publications, 2002, harv, , p. 161Preliminary peace articles were signed in Paris on 30 November 1782, while preliminaries between Britain, Spain, France, and the Netherlands continued until September 1783. The United States Congress of the Confederation ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784. Copies were sent back to Europe for ratification by the other parties involved, the first reaching France in March 1784. British ratification occurred on April 9, 1784, and the ratified versions were exchanged in Paris on May 12, 1784.Dwight L. Smith, "Josiah Harmar, Diplomatic Courier." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 87.4 (1963): 420â430. The war formally concluded on September 3, 1783.A ceasefire in America was proclaimed by Congress on April 11, 1783 in response to a ceasefire agreement between Great Britain and France on January 20, 1783. The final peace treaty was signed on September 3, 1783 and ratified in the U.S. on January 14, 1784, with final ratification exchanged in Europe on May 12, 1784. Hostilities in India continued until July 1783.The last British troops departed New York City on November 25, 1783, marking the end of British rule in the new United States.Richard Morris, The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence (1983).

Aftermath

Casualties and losses

Americans and allies

The total loss of life throughout the conflict is largely unknown. As was typical in wars of the era, diseases such as smallpox claimed more lives than battle. Between 1775 and 1782, a smallpox epidemic broke out throughout North America, killing 40 people in Boston alone. Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the disease was one of his most important decisions.Ellis (2004), p. 87.Between 25,000 and 70,000 American Patriots died during active military service. Of these, approximately 6,800 were killed in battle, while at least 17,000 died from disease. The majority of the latter died while prisoners of war of the British, mostly in the prison ships in New York Harbor. If the upper limit of 70,000 is accepted as the total net loss for the Patriots, it would make the conflict proportionally deadlier than the American Civil War. Uncertainty arises due to the difficulties in accurately calculating the number of those who succumbed to disease, as it is estimated at least 10,000 died in 1776 alone. The number of Patriots seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000.American dead and wounded: Shy, pp. 249â50. The lower figure for number of wounded comes from Chambers, p. 849.The French suffered approximately 7,000 total dead throughout the conflict; of those, 2,112 were killed in combat in the American theaters of war.The Dutch suffered around 500 total killed, owing to the minor scale of their conflict with Britain.

British and allies

British returns in 1783 listed 43,633 rank and file deaths across the British Armed Forces. A table from 1781 puts total British Army deaths at 9,372 soldiers killed in battle across the Americas; 6,046 in North America (1775â1779), and 3,326 in the West Indies (1778â1780). In 1784, a British lieutenant compiled a detailed list of 205 British officers killed in action during the war, encompassing Europe, the Caribbean and the East Indies.The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 27 (1903), p. 176. Extrapolations based upon this list puts British Army losses in the area of at least 4,000 killed or died of wounds. Approximately 7,774 Germans died in British service in addition to 4,888 deserters; of the former, it is estimated 1,800 were killed in combat.Around 171,000 sailors served in the Royal Navy during the war; approximately a quarter of whom had been pressed into service. Around 1,240 were killed in battle, while an estimated 18,500 died from disease (1776â1780). The greatest killer at sea was scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency.WEB, Scurvy,weblink GARD, 26 September 2016, 5 June 2017, It was not until 1795 that scurvy was eradicated from the Royal Navy after the Admiralty declared lemon juice and sugar were to be issued among the standard daily rations of sailors.Vale, Brian (2008). "The Conquest of Scurvy in the Royal Navy 1793â1800: a Challenge to Current Orthodoxy". The Mariner's Mirror. 94: 160â175. Around 42,000 sailors deserted during the war.Mackesy (1964), pp. 6, 176 (British seamen). The impact on merchant shipping was substantial; an estimated 3,386 merchant ships were seized by enemy forces during the war;Conway (1995) p. 191 of those, 2,283 were taken by American privateers alone.WEB, John Pike,weblink Privateers, Globalsecurity.org, October 18, 1907, May 8, 2013,

Financial debts

At the start of the war, the economy of the colonies was flourishing,Marston, Daniel. The American Revolution 1774â1783. Osprey Publishing (2002) {{ISBN|9781841763439}}. p. 82 and the free white population enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world.JOURNAL, Whaples, Robert, Robert Whaples, The Journal of Economic History, 55, 1, 144, 2123771, Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions, March 1995, JSTOR, y, 10.1017/S0022050700040602, There is an overwhelming consensus that Americans' economic standard of living on the eve of the Revolution was among the highest in the world., 10.1.1.482.4975, The Royal Navy enforced a naval blockade during the war to financially cripple the colonies, however, this proved unsuccessful; 90% of the population worked in farming, not in coastal trade, and, as such, the American economy proved resilient enough to withstand the blockade.Greene and Pole, eds., A Companion to the American Revolution (2004) chapters 42, 48Congress had immense difficulties throughout the conflict to efficiently finance the war effort.Curtis P. Nettels, The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775â1815 (1962) pp. 23â44 As the circulation of hard currency declined, the Americans had to rely on loans from American merchants and bankers, France, Spain and the Netherlands, saddling the young nation with crippling debts. Congress attempted to remedy this by printing vast amounts of paper money and bills of credit to raise revenue. The effect was disastrous; inflation skyrocketed, and the paper money became virtually worthless. The inflation spawned a popular phrase that anything of little value was "not worth a continental"."Not worth a continental {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120709095712weblink |date=July 9, 2012 }}", "Creating the United States", Library of Congress. Retrieved 14 January 2012.By 1791, the United States had accumulated a national debt of approximately $75.5 million.Trescott, Paul. "Federal-State Financial Relations, 1790â1860". 15: 227â45. The United States finally solved its debt and currency problems in the 1790s, when Secretary of the TreasuryAlexander Hamilton secured legislation by which the national government assumed all of the state debts, and, in addition, created a national bank and a funding system based on tariffs and bond issues that paid off the foreign debts.BOOK, David Kennedy, The Brief American Pageant: A History of the Republic, Volume I: To 1877,weblink 2011, Cengage Learning, 136, etal, 978-0-495-91535-5, Britain spent around Â£80 million and ended with a national debt of Â£250 million, (Â£{{Formatprice|{{inflation|UKGDP|250000000|1783}}}} in today's money), generating a yearly interest of Â£9.5 million annually. The debts piled upon that which it had already accumulated from the Seven Years' War.BOOK, Robert Tombs and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present,weblink 2006, 179, Knopf Doubleday, 978-1-4000-4024-7, Due to wartime taxation upon the British populace, the tax for the average Briton amounted to approximately four shilling in every pound, or 20 percent.Conway, Stephen. The War of American Independence 1775â1783. Publisher: E. Arnold (1995) {{ISBN|0340625201}}. 280 pp.The French spent approximately 1.3 billion livres on aiding the Americans,BOOK, Stacy, Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America,weblink 2006, Macmillan, 5, 978-1-4299-0799-6, accumulating a national debt of 3.315.1 billion livres by 1783 on war costs.Conway (1995) p. 242 Unlike Britain, which had a very efficient taxation system,Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers (1987) pp. 81, 119 the French tax system was highly unstable, eventually leading to a financial crisis in 1786.Marston (2002) p. 82 The debts contributed to a worsening fiscal crisis that ultimately begat the French Revolution at the end of the century.Tombs (2007) p. 179 The debt continued to spiral; on the eve of the French Revolution, the national debt had skyrocketed to 12 billion livres.BOOK, Stacy Schiff, Stacy Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America,weblink 2006, Macmillan, 5, 978-1-4299-0799-6, Spain had nearly doubled her military spending during the war, from 454 million reales in 1778 to over 700 million in 1779.Lynch, John. Bourbon Spain 1700â1808. Publisher: Oxford (1989) {{ISBN|9780631192459}}. p. 326 Spain more easily disposed of her debts unlike her French ally, partially due to the massive increase in silver mining in her American colonies; production increased approximately 600% in Mexico, and by 250% in Peru and Bolivia.Castillero Calvo, Alfredo (2004). Las Rutas de la Plata: La Primera GlobalizaciÃ³n. Madrid: Ediciones San Marcos. {{ISBN|8489127476}}. p. 193

Armed forces

Recruitment

In 1775, the standing British Army, exclusive of militia, comprised 45,123 men worldwide, made up of 38,254 infantry and 6,869 cavalry. The Army had approximately eighteen regiments of foot, some 8,500 men, stationed in North America.Clode, Charles Matthew (1869), "The Military Forces of the Crown: Their Administration and Government", London, J Murray, p. 268. Note: Figures include the 41st regiment of invalids, but not the 20 independent companies on garrison duty. Troops in India were under the control of the East India Company, and did not become part of the British Army until 1858. Standing armies had played a key role in the purge of the Long Parliament in 1648,BOOK, The Oxford Companion to British History, 2, Pride's Purge, the maintenance of a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell,{{Citation|last=Plant |first=David |url=http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/rule-major-generals.htm |title=Rule of the Major-Generals |publisher=British Civil Wars and Commonwealth website|accessdate= June 9, 2017}} and the overthrow of James II,Rodger, N.A.M (2004). The Command of the Ocean: A Naval History of Britain 1649â1815. Penguin Group. {{ISBN|9780393060508}}, p. 137 and, as such, the Army had been deliberately kept small in peacetime to prevent abuses of power by the King.NEWS,weblink The March of the Guards to Finchley; 18th Century Recruitment, Umich education, Despite this, eighteenth century armies were not easy guests, and were regarded with scorn and contempt by the press and public of the New and Old World alike, derided as enemies of liberty. An expression ran in the Navy; "A messmate before a shipmate, a shipmate before a stranger, a stranger before a dog, a dog before a soldier".Belcher, Henry (1911), "The First American Civil War; First Period, 1775â1778, with chapters on the Continental or Revolutionary army and on the forces of the Crown", Volume 1, London Macmillan, pp. 250, 258(File:Caricature-1780-press gang.jpg|thumb|left|Press gang at work, British caricature of 1780)Parliament suffered chronic difficulties in obtaining sufficient manpower,War Office Papers, Manuscripts in the Public Record Office, 1:992â1008, passim and found it impossible to fill the quotas they had set.War Officer Papers, 4:275, Jenkinson to Clinton, 5 Dec. 1780 The Army was a deeply unpopular profession, one contentious issue being pay. A Private infantryman was paid a wage of just 8d. per day,9th Report on Public Accounts (1783) in 39 House of Commons Journal, H.M. Stationery Office, 1803, pp. 325â44 the same pay as for a New Model Army infantryman, 130 years earlier.Plant, David, "The New Model Army", BCW Project,weblink Retrieved 9 June 2017 The rate of pay in the army was insufficient to meet the rising costs of living, turning off potential recruits,Fortescue, Volume III, p. 41 as service was nominally for life.Owen, Captain Wheeler (1914), "The War Office Past and Present", Methuen & Co. London, p. 90To entice people to enrol, Parliament offered a bounty of Â£1.10s for every recruit.War Office Papers, 3:5, Harvey to Elliot, 10 March 1775 As the war dragged on, Parliament became desperate for manpower; criminals were offered military service to escape legal penalties, and deserters were pardoned if they re-joined their units.Clode, Volume II, pp. 13â14 After the defeat at Saratoga, Parliament doubled the bounty to Â£3,Statutes at Large, Ruffhead's Edition (London, 1763â1800), Volume XIII, pp. 273â80 and increased it again the following year, to Â£3.3s, as well as expanding the age limit from 17â45 to 16â50 years of age.Statutes at Large, Ruffhead's Edition, Volume XIII, pp. 316â17Impressment, essentially conscription by the "press gang", was a favored recruiting method, though it was unpopular with the public, leading many to enlist in local militias to avoid regular service.War Office Papers, 4:966, Jenkinson to John Livesey and E. Brewer, 13 Apr. 1779 Attempts were made to draft such levies, much to the chagrin of the militia commanders.War Office Papers, 1:996, Sir William Codrington to Barrington, December 1778 Competition between naval and army press gangs, and even between rival ships or regiments, frequently resulted in brawls between the gangs in order to secure recruits for their unit.War Office Papers. 1:998, Lieutenant General Parker to Barrington, 19 June 1778. Men would maim themselves to avoid the press gangs,War Office Papers, 1:1005, Oughton to Jenkinson, 27 May 1779 while many deserted at the first opportunity.Andrews, Charles McLean (1912), "Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public record office of Great Britain", Washington, D.C., Carnegie institution of Washington, Volume II, p. 32 Pressed men were militarily unreliable; regiments with large numbers of such men were deployed to garrisons such as Gibraltar or the West Indies, purely to increase the difficulty in successfully deserting.War Office Papers, 4:966, Jenkinson to Amherst, 26 Oct. 1779By 1781, the Army numbered approximately 121,000 men globally, 48,000 of whom were stationed throughout the Americas. Of the 171,000 sailors who served in the Royal Navy throughout the conflict, around a quarter were pressed. This same proportion, approximately 42,000 men, deserted during the conflict. At its height, the Navy had 94 ships-of-the-line,Jonathan Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (Yale University Press, 1985), p. 110. 104 frigatesWinfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail: 1714â1792 (Seaforth Publishing, 2007) {{ISBN|9781844157006}} and 37 sloopsWinfield, Rif, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714â1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates (Seaforth Publishing, 2007) in service.

Loyalists and Hessians

File:Hessian jager.jpg|thumb|Hessian soldiers of the Leibregiment]]In 1775, Britain unsuccessfully attempted to secure 20,000 mercenaries from Russia,Colonial Office Papers. Manuscripts in the Public Record Office, 5:92, Dartmouth to Howe, 5 Sept. 1775 and the use of the Scots Brigade from the Dutch Republic,Edler 2001, pp. 28â32 such was the shortage of manpower. Parliament managed to negotiate treaties with the princes of German states for large sums of money, in exchange for mercenary troops. In total, 29,875 troops were hired for British service from six German states; Brunswick (5,723), Hesse-Kassel (16,992), Hesse-Hannau (2,422), Ansbach-Bayreuth (2,353), Waldeck-Pyrmont (1,225) and Anhalt-Zerbst (1,160). King George III, who also ruled Hanover as a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire, was approached by Parliament to lend the government Hanoverian soldiers for service in the war. Hanover supplied 2,365 men in five battalions, however, the lease agreement permitted them to only be used in Europe.Knesebeck, Ernst von dem (1845), "Geschichte de churhannoverschen Truppen in Gibraltar, Menorca und Ostindien", Published by Im Verlage der Helwingschen Hof-Buchhandlung. Note: The strength of a Hanoverian battalion is listed as 473 menWithout any major allies, the manpower shortage became critical when France and Spain entered the war, forcing a major diversion of military resources from the Americas. Recruiting adequate numbers of Loyalist militia in America proved difficult due to high Patriot activity.Black (2001), p. 59. On militia see Boatner (1974), p. 707, and Weigley (1973), ch. 2. To bolster numbers, the British promised freedom and grants of land to slaves who fought for them.WEB,weblink Lord Dunmore's Proclamation, Digital History, 2007-10-18, 2007-10-18, yes,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20080422231140weblink">weblink April 22, 2008, Approximately 25,000 Loyalists fought for the British throughout the war, and provided some of the best troops in the British service;Buchanan, 327 the British Legion, a mixed regiment of 250 dragoons and 200 infantryBabits, p/ 46, "British Legion Infantry strength at Cowpens was between 200 and 271 enlisted men". However, this statement is referenced to a note on pp. 175â76, which says, "The British Legion infantry at Cowpens is usually considered to have had about 200â250 men, but returns for the 25 December 1780 muster show only 175. Totals obtained by Cornwallis, dated 15 January, show that the whole legion had 451 men, but approximately 250 were dragoons". There would therefore appear to be no evidence for putting the total strength of the five British Legion Light Infantry companies at more than 200. commanded by Banastre Tarleton, gained a fearsome reputation in the colonies, especially in the South.Review by: Hugh F. Rankin; Reviewed Work: The Green Dragoon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson by Robert D. Bass, The North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. 34, No. 4 (October, 1957), pp. 548â50JOURNAL, Bass, Robert.D, The Green Dragoon: The Lives of Banastre Tarleton and Mary Robinson , The North Carolina Historical Review, 34, 4, 548â550, 23517100, August 1957, WEB, Agniel, Lucien, The Late Affair Has Almost Broke My Heart: The American Revolution in the South, 1780â1781,weblink June 1972, Chatham Press, 18 November 2015,

Leadership

Britain had a difficult time appointing a determined senior military leadership in America. Thomas Gage, Commander-in-Chief of North America at the outbreak of the war, was criticized for being too lenient on the rebellious colonists. Jeffrey Amherst, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in 1778, refused a direct command in America, due to unwillingness to take sides in the war.Ketchum (1997), p. 76 Admiral Augustus Keppel similarly opposed a command, stating; "I cannot draw the sword in such a cause". The Earl of Effingham resigned his commission when his regiment was posted to America, while William Howe and John Burgoyne were opposed to military solutions to the crisis. Howe and Henry Clinton both stated they were unwilling participants, and were only following orders.Ketchum (1997), p. 77As was the case in many European armies, except the Prussian Army, officers in British service could purchase commissions to ascend the ranks.Duffy, Christopher. The Military Experience in the Age of Reason. p. 61. {{ISBN|1853266906}}. Despite repeated attempts by Parliament to suppress it, the practise was common in the Army.Forteseue, The British Army, 1783â1802, p. 34 Values of commissions varied, but were usually in line with social and military prestige, for example, regiments such as the Guards commanded the highest prices.WEB,weblink The Purchase of Officers' Commissions in the British Army, John, Armatys, Robert George, Cordery, Colonial Wargames, 2005, 10 June 2017,weblink" title="archive.is/20120728105921weblink">weblink July 28, 2012, The lower ranks often regarded the treatment to high-ranking commissions by wealthier officers as "plums for [their] consumption".Belcher, Volume I, p. 270 Wealthy individuals lacking any formal military education, or practical experience, often found their way into positions of high responsibility, diluting the effectiveness of a regiment.BOOK, Michael Lanning, American Revolution 100: The Battles, People, and Events of the American War for Independence, Ranked by Their Significance,weblink 2009, Sourcebooks, 193â96, 978-1-4022-4170-3, Though Royal authority had forbade the practise since 1711, it was still permitted for infants to hold commissions. Young boys, often orphans of deceased wealthy officers, were taken from their schooling and placed in positions of responsibility within regiments.Duncan, Volume II, p. 15

Logistics

File:Grenadier, 40th Foot, 1767.jpg|thumb|Grenadier of the 40th Regiment of Foot40th Regiment of FootLogistical organization of eighteenth century armies was chaotic at best, and the British Army was no exception. No logistical corps existed in the modern sense; while on campaign in foreign territories such as America, horses, wagons, and drivers were frequently requisitioned from the locals, often by impressment or by hire.Duncan, Francis (1879). "History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery", Volume 1. J. Murray, pp. 131, 303, 309 No centrally organized medical corps existed. It was common for surgeons to have no formal medical education, and no diploma or entry examination was required. Nurses sometimes were apprentices to surgeons, but many were drafted from the women who followed the army.Sergeant Lamb, "Journal of the American War", p. 75 Army surgeons and doctors were poorly paid and were regarded as social inferiors to other officers.Duncan, History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Volume 2, p. 15The heavy personal equipment and wool uniform of the regular infantrymen were wholly unsuitable for combat in America, and the outfit was especially ill-suited to comfort and agile movement.Burgoyne, State of the Expedition, p. 148 During the Battle of Monmouth in late June 1778, the temperature exceeded 100Â°F (37.8Â°C) and is said to have claimed more lives through heat stroke than through actual combat.WEB, Battle of Monmouth Courthouse,weblink Robinson Library, Self-published, 20 June 2017, The standard-issue firearm of the British Army was the Land Pattern Musket. Some officers preferred their troops to fire careful, measured shots (around two per minute), rather than rapid firing. A bayonet made firing difficult, as its cumbersome shape hampered ramming down the charge into the barrel.Lloyd, Ernest Marsh (1908), Review of the History of Infantry, p. 155 British troops had a tendency to fire impetuously, resulting in inaccurate fire, a trait for which John Burgoyne criticized them during the Saratoga campaign. Burgoyne instead encouraged bayonet charges to break up enemy formations, which was a preferred tactic in most European armies at the time.Trevelyan, Volume III, p. 6; Volume IV, p. 158File:Officer and Serjeant of a Highland Regiment.jpg|thumb|left|Soldiers of the Black Watch armed with Brown BessBrown BessEvery battalion in America had organized its own rifle company by the end of the war, although rifles were not formally issued to the army until the Baker Rifle in 1801.Fortescue, The British Army, 1783â1802, p. 83. Flintlocks were heavily dependent on the weather; high winds could blow the gunpowder from the flash pan,Sawyer, Charles Winthrop (1910), "Firearms in American History", p. 99 while heavy rain could soak the paper cartridge, ruining the powder and rendering the musket unable to fire. Furthermore, flints used in British muskets were of notoriously poor quality; they could only be fired around six times before requiring resharpening, while American flints could fire sixty. This led to a common expression among the British: "Yankee flint was as good as a glass of grog".Trevelyan, Volume IV, pp. 224, 34Provisioning troops and sailors proved to be an immense challenge, as the majority of food stores had to be shipped overseas from Britain.Minute Book of a Board of General Officers of the British Army in New York, 1781. New York Historical Society Collections, 1916, p. 81. The need to maintain Loyalist support prevented the Army from living off the land.Black (2001), p. 14 Other factors also impeded this option; the countryside was too sparsely populated and the inhabitants were largely hostile or indifferent, the network of roads and bridges was poorly developed, and the area which the British controlled was so limited that foraging parties were frequently in danger of being ambushed.Correspondence of George III with Lord North, Volume II, pp. 7, 52 After France entered the war, the threat of the French navy increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to America. Food supplies were frequently in bad condition. The climate was also against the British in the southern colonies and the Caribbean, where the intense summer heat caused food supplies to sour and spoil.BOOK, Merril D. Smith, The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia,weblink 2015, ABC-CLIO, 374, Life at sea was little better. Sailors and passengers were issued a daily food ration, largely consisting of hardtack and beer.WEB,weblink Ships Biscuits â Royal Navy hardtack, Royal Navy Museum, 2010-01-14, yes,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20091031064002weblink">weblink October 31, 2009, The hardtack was often infested by weevils and was so tough that it earned the nicknames "molar breakers" and "worm castles",WEB,weblink 19th United States Infantry, 19thusregulars.com, 2013-12-25,weblink" title="archive.is/20120715204518weblink">weblink July 15, 2012, and it sometimes had to be broken up with cannon shot. Meat supplies often spoiled on long voyages.Lowell, Edward J and Andrews, Raymond J (June 15, 1997) "The Hessians in the Revolutionary War", Corner House Pub, {{ISBN|9780879281168}}, p. 56 The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables gave rise to scurvy, one of the biggest killers at sea.

Discipline

Discipline was harsh in the armed forces, and the lash was used to punish even trivial offencesâand not used sparingly.Howe, (Sir) William, Orderly Book, edited by B. F. Stevens (London, 1890), pp. 263, 288 For instance, two redcoats received 1,000 lashes each for robbery during the Saratoga campaign,Burgoyne, John, Orderly Book, edited by E. B. O'Callaghan (Albany, 1860), p. 74. while another received 800 lashes for striking a superior officer.Howe, Orderly Book, pp. 263, 288 Flogging was a common punishment in the Royal Navy and came to be associated with the stereotypical hardiness of sailors."Life at sea in the age of sail". National Maritime Museum.Despite the harsh discipline, a distinct lack of self-discipline pervaded all ranks of the British forces. Soldiers had an intense passion for gambling, reaching such excesses that troops would often wager their own uniforms.Lamb, Memoir, p. 74 Many drank heavily, and this was not exclusive to the lower ranks; William Howe was said to have seen many "crapulous mornings" while campaigning in New York. John Burgoyne drank heavily on a nightly basis towards the end of the Saratoga campaign. The two generals were also reported to have found solace with the wives of subordinate officers to ease the stressful burdens of command.Riedesel, Mrs. General, Letters and Journals, translated from the original German by W. L. Stone (Albany, 1867) p. 125 During the Philadelphia campaign, British officers deeply offended local Quakers by entertaining their mistresses in the houses where they had been quartered.Stedman, Charles, History of the American War (London, 1794), Volume I, p. 309 Some reports indicated that British troops were generally scrupulous in their treatment of non-combatants.Fortescue, The British Army, 1783â1802, p. 35 This is in contrast to diaries of Hessian soldiers, who recorded their disapproval of British conduct towards the colonists, such as the destruction of property and the execution of prisoners.Steven Schwamenfeld. "The Foundation of British Strength: National Identity and the Common British Soldier." Ph.D. diss., Florida State University 2007, pp. 123â24The presence of Hessian soldiers caused considerable anxiety among the colonists, both Patriot and Loyalist, who viewed them as brutal mercenaries.Schwamenfeld (2007), pp. 123â24 British soldiers were often contemptuous in their treatment of Hessian troops, despite orders from General Howe that "the English should treat the Germans as brothers". The order only began to have any real effect when the Hessians learned to speak a minimal degree of English, which was seen as a prerequisite for the British troops to accord them any respect.Schwamenfeld (2007), p. 123During peacetime, the Army's idleness led to it being riddled with corruption and inefficiency, resulting in many administrative difficulties once campaigning began.Clayton, Anthony (2007). The British Officer: Leading the Army from 1660 to the Present. Routledge. {{ISBN|178159287X}}, p. 65

Strategic deficiencies

The British leadership soon discovered it had overestimated the capabilities of its own troops, while underestimating those of the colonists, causing a sudden re-think in British planning. The ineffective initial response of British military and civil officials to the onset of the rebellion had allowed the advantage to shift to the colonists, as British authorities rapidly lost control over every colony. A microcosm of these shortcomings were evident at the Battle of Bunker Hill. It took ten hours for the British leadership to respond following the sighting of the Americans on the Charlestown Peninsula, giving the colonists ample time to reinforce their defenses.French, pp. 263â65 Rather than opt for a simple flanking attack that would have rapidly succeeded with minimal loss,Frothingham, p. 155 the British decided on repeated frontal attacks. The results were telling; the British suffered 1,054 casualties of a force of around 3,000 after repeated frontal assaults.Frothingham pp. 191, 194 The British leadership had nevertheless remained excessively optimistic, believing that just two regiments could suppress the rebellion in Massachusetts.Frothingham, p. 156Ferling, 2015, pp. 127â29Debate persists over whether a British defeat was a guaranteed outcome. Ferling argues that the odds were so long, the defeat of Britain was nothing short of a miracle.John E. Ferling, Almost A Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (2009), pp. 562â77. Ellis, however, considers that the odds always favored the Americans, and questions whether a British victory by any margin was realistic. Ellis argues that the British squandered their only opportunities for a decisive success in 1777, and that the strategic decisions undertaken by William Howe underestimated the challenges posed by the Americans. Ellis concludes that, once Howe failed, the opportunity for a British victory "would never come again".BOOK, Joseph J. Ellis, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence,weblink 2013, Random House, 978-0-307-70122-0, Conversely, the United States Army's official textbook argues that, had Britain been able to commit 10,000 fresh troops to the war in 1780, a British victory was within the realms of possibility.Richard W. Stewart, ed., ''American Military History Volume 1 The United States Army And The Forging Of A Nation, 1775â1917" (2005) ch 4 "The Winning of Independence, 1777â1783" (2005), p. 103.

William Howe

File:WilliamHowe1777ColorMezzotint.jpeg|thumb|left|A 1777 mezzotint of Sir William Howe, British Commander-in-Chief from 1775â1778]]Historians such as Ellis and Stewart have observed that, under William Howe's command, the British squandered several opportunities to achieve a decisive victory over the Americans. Throughout the New York and Philadelphia campaigns, Howe made several strategic errors, errors which cost the British opportunities for a complete victory. At Long Island, Howe failed to even attempt an encirclement of Washington,Adams, Charles Francis, "Battle of Long Island", in American Historical Review (1895â1896), pp. 668â669. and actively restrained his subordinates from mounting an aggressive pursuit of the defeated American army. At White Plains, he refused to engage Washington's vulnerable army, and instead concentrated his efforts upon a hill which offered the British no strategic advantage. After securing control of New York, Howe dispatched Henry Clinton to capture Newport, a measure which Clinton was opposed to, on the grounds the troops assigned to his command could have been put to better use in pursuing Washington's retreating army. Despite the bleak outlook for the revolutionary causeFischer, pp. 138â142 and the surge of Loyalist activity in the wake of Washington's defeats, Howe made no attempt to mount an attack upon Washington while the Americans settled down into winter quarters, much to their surprise.During planning for the Saratoga campaign, Howe was left with the choice of committing his army to support Burgoyne, or capture Philadelphia, the revolutionary capital. Howe decided upon the latter, determining that Washington was of a greater threat. When Howe launched his campaign, he took his army upon a time-consuming route through the Chesapeake Bay, rather than the more sensible choices of overland through New Jersey, or by sea through the Delaware Bay. The move left him unable to assist Burgoyne even if it was required of him. The decision so angered Parliament, that Howe was accused by Tories on both sides of the Atlantic of treason.During the Philadelphia campaign, Howe failed to pursue and destroy the defeated Americans on two occasions; once after the Battle of Brandywine, and again after the Battle of Germantown. At the Battle of White Marsh, Howe failed to even attempt to exploit the vulnerable American rear, and then inexplicably ordered a retreat to Philadelphia after only minor skirmishes, astonishing both sides. While the Americans wintered only twenty miles away, Howe made no effort to attack their camp, which critics argue could have ended the war. Following the conclusion of the campaign, Howe resigned his commission, and was replaced by Henry Clinton on May 24, 1778.Contrary to Howe's more hostile critics, however, there were strategic factors at play which impeded aggressive action. Howe may have been dissuaded from pursuing aggressive manoeuvres due to the memory of the grievous losses the British suffered at Bunker Hill.Frothingham pp. 152â53Jackson, Kenneth T; Dunbar, David S (2005). Empire City: New York Through the Centuries. Columbia University Press. {{ISBN|9780231109093}}, p. 20 During the major campaigns in New York and Philadelphia, Howe often wrote of the scarcity of adequate provisions, which hampered his ability to mount effective campaigns.Colonial Office Papers, Manuscripts in the Public Record Office, 5:93, Howe to Dartmouth, 1st December 1775 Howe's tardiness in launching the New York campaign, and his reluctance to allow Cornwallis to vigorously pursue Washington's beaten army, have both been attributed to the paucity of available food supplies.Colonial Office Papers, 5:93, Howe to Germain, 7 June and 7 July 1776A View of the Evidence (London, 1783), p. 13During the winter of 1776â1777, Howe split his army into scattered cantonments. This decision dangerously exposed the individual forces to defeat in detail, as the distance between them was such that they could not mutually support each other. This strategic failure allowed the Americans to achieve victory at the Battle of Trenton, and the concurrent Battle of Princeton.Correspondence of George III with Lord North, Volume II, p. 57 While a major strategic error to divide an army in such a manner, the quantity of available food supplies in New York was so low that Howe had been compelled to take such a decision. The garrisons were widely spaced so their respective foraging parties would not interfere with each other's efforts.Colonial Office Papers, 5:93, Howe to Germain, 30 Nov 1776 Howe's difficulties during the Philadelphia campaign were also greatly exacerbated by the poor quality and quantity of available provisions.Stedman, American War, Volume I, p. 287

Clinton and Cornwallis

File:First Marquis of Cornwallis.jpg|thumb|General Charles Cornwallis led British forces in the southern campaign.]]In 1780, the primary British strategy hinged upon a Loyalist uprising in the south, for which Charles Cornwallis was chiefly responsible. After an encouraging success at Camden, Cornwallis was poised to invade North Carolina. However, any significant Loyalist support had been effectively destroyed at the Battle of Kings Mountain, and the British Legion, the cream of his army, had been decisively defeated at the Battle of Cowpens. Following both defeats, Cornwallis was fiercely criticized for detaching a significant portion of his army without adequate mutual support. Despite the defeats, Cornwallis chose to proceed into North Carolina, gambling his success upon a large Loyalist uprising which never materialized.Lumpkin, From Savannah to Yorktown: The American Revolution in the South (2000). As a result, subsequent engagements cost Cornwallis valuable troops he could not replace, as at the Battle of Guilford Courthouse, and the Americans steadily wore his army down in an exhaustive war of attrition. Cornwallis had thus left the Carolinas ripe for reconquest. The Americans had largely achieved this aim by the end of 1781, effectively confining the British to the coast, and undoing all the progress they had made in the previous year.Pancake, John (1985). This Destructive War. University of Alabama Press. p. 221In a last-ditch attempt to win the war in the South, Cornwallis resolved to invade Virginia, in order to cut off the American's supply base to the Carolinas. Henry Clinton, Cornwallis' superior, strongly opposed the plan, believing the decisive confrontations would take place between Washington in the North. London had approved Cornwallis plan, however they had failed to include Clinton in the decision-making, despite his seniority over Cornwallis, leading to a muddled strategic direction. Cornwallis then decided to invade Virginia without informing Clinton of his intentions.Clinton, H.; The American Rebellion. Note: This lack of notification was one of Clinton's main arguments in his own defense in the controversy that followed the surrender at Yorktown. Clinton, however, had wholly failed to construct a coherent strategy for British campaigning that year, owing to his fractious relationship that he shared with Mariot Arbuthnot, his naval counterpart.As the Franco-American army approached Cornwallis at Yorktown, he made no attempt to sally out and engage before siege lines could be erected, despite the repeated urging of his subordinate officers. Expecting relief to soon arrive from Clinton, Cornwallis prematurely abandoned all of his outer defences, which were then promptly occupied by the besiegers, serving to hasten the British defeat.Lengel, Edward (2005). General George Washington. New York: Random House Paperbacks. {{ISBN|0812969502}}. p. 337 These factors contributed to the eventual surrender of Cornwallis' entire army, and the end of major operations in North America.Fleming, Thomas (1970). The Perils of Peace. New York: The Dial Press. {{ISBN|9780061139116}}, p. 16Like Howe before him, Clinton's efforts to campaign suffered from chronic supply issues. In 1778, Clinton wrote to Germain complaining of the lack of supplies, even after the arrival of a convoy from Ireland.Colonial Office Papers, 5:96, Clinton to Germain, 15 September 1778 That winter, the supply issue had deteriorated so badly, that Clinton expressed considerable anxiety over how the troops were going to be properly fed.Colonial Office Papers, 5:97, Clinton to Germain, 15 December 1778 Clinton was largely inactive in the North throughout 1779, launching few major campaigns. This inactivity was partially due to the shortage of food.Colonial Office Papers, 5:98, Haldimand to Clinton, 19 July and 29 August 1779 By 1780, the situation had not improved. Clinton wrote a frustrated correspondence to Germain, voicing concern that a "fatal consequence will ensue" if matters did not improve. By October that year, Clinton again wrote to Germain, angered that the troops in New York had not received "an ounce" of that year's allotted stores from Britain.Colonial Office Papers, 5:100, Clinton to Germain, 31st October 1780

Campaign issues

Suppressing a rebellion in America presented the British with major problems. The key issue was distance; it could take up to three months to cross the Atlantic, and orders from London were often outdated by the time that they arrived.Black (2001), p. 39; Greene and Pole (1999), pp. 298, 306 The colonies had never been formally united prior to the conflict and there was no centralized area of ultimate strategic importance. Traditionally, the fall of a capital city often signalled the end of a conflict,Rossman, Vadim (2016), "Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of Development and Relocation", Taylor & Francis, {{ISBN|1317562852}}, p. 2 yet the war continued unabated even after the fall of major settlements such as New York, Philadelphia (which was the Patriot capital), and Charleston.Edward E. Curtis, The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution, Conclusion, (Yale U.P. 1926), weblink Retrieved 10 June 2017 Britain's ability to project its power overseas lay chiefly in the power of the Royal Navy, allowing her to control major coastal settlements with relative ease and enforce a strong blockade of colonial ports. However, the overwhelming majority of the American population was agrarian, not urban. As a result, the American economy proved resilient enough to withstand the blockade's effects.File:John Singleton Copley 001.jpg|thumb|left|Black Loyalist soldiers fought alongside British regulars in the 1781 Battle of Jersey, from The Death of Major PeirsonThe Death of Major PeirsonThe need to maintain Loyalist support prevented the British from using the harsh methods of suppressing revolts that they had used in Scotland and Ireland.Black (2001), p. 14. For example, British troops looted and pillaged the locals during an aborted attack on Charleston in 1779, enraging both Patriots and Loyalists.Wilson, David K (2005). The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775â1780. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. {{ISBN|1570035733}}. {{OCLC|232001108}}. p. 112 Neutral colonists were often driven into the ranks of the Patriots when brutal combat broke out between Tories and Whigs across the Carolinas in the later stages of the war.Black (2001), pp. 14â16 (Harsh methods), pp. 35, 38 (slaves and Indians), p. 16 (neutrals into revolutionaries). Conversely, Loyalists were often emboldened when Patriots resorted to intimidating suspected Tories, such as destroying property or tarring and feathering.Leonard Woods Larabee, Conservatism in Early American History (1948) pp 164â65Calhoon, Robert M. The Loyalists in Revolutionary America, 1760â1781 (1973) The vastness of the American countryside and the limited manpower available meant that the British could never simultaneously defeat the Americans and occupy captured territory. One British statesman described the attempt as "like trying to conquer a map".Curtis, "The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution, ConclusionWealthy Loyalists wielded great influence in LondonC. Ritcheson, "Loyalist Influence on British Policy Toward the United States After the American Revolution"; Eighteenth-Century Studies; (1973) 7#1 p. 6. Jstor link and were successful in convincing the British that the majority view in the colonies was sympathetic toward the Crown. Consequently, British planners pinned the success of their strategies on popular uprisings of Loyalists. Historians have estimated that Loyalists made up only 15â20% of the population (vs. 40â45% Patriots)Greene and Pole (1999), p. 235 and that they continued to deceive themselves on their level of support as late as 1780.BOOK, William Edward Hartpole Lecky, A History of England: In the Eighteenth Century,weblink 1891, 139, The British discovered that any significant level of organized Loyalist activity would require the continued presence of British regulars,Black (2001), p. 12. which presented them with a major dilemma. The manpower that the British had available was insufficient to both protect Loyalist territory and counter American advances.Black (2001), pp. 13â14. The vulnerability of Loyalist militias was repeatedly demonstrated in the South, where they suffered strings of defeats to their Patriot neighbors. The most crucial juncture of this was at Kings Mountain, and the victory of the Patriot partisans irreversibly crippled Loyalist military capability in the South.Upon the entry of France and Spain into the conflict, the British were forced to severely limit the number of troops and warships that they sent to North America in order to defend other key territories and the British mainland. As a result, King George III abandoned any hope of subduing America militarily while he had a European war to contend with.Ferling (2007), p. 294 The small size of Britain's army left them unable to concentrate their resources primarily in one theater as they had done in the Seven Years' War, leaving them at a critical disadvantage. The British were compelled to disperse troops from the Americas to Europe and the East Indies, and these forces were unable to assist one other as a result, precariously exposing them to defeat. In North America, the immediate strategic focus of the French, Spanish, and British shifted to Jamaica,Dull, (1985) p. 244 whose sugar exports were more valuable to the British than the economy of the Thirteen Colonies combined.Following the end of the war, Britain had lost some of her most populous colonies. However, the economic effects of the loss were negligible in the long-term, and she became a global superpower just 32 years after the end of the conflict.Tellier, L.-N. (2009). Urban World History: an Economic and Geographical Perspective. Quebec: PUQ. p. 463. {{ISBN|2760515885}}.

United States

File:Battle of Guiliford Courthouse 15 March 1781.jpg|thumb|1st Maryland Regiment holding the line at the Battle of GuilfordBattle of GuilfordThe Americans began the war with significant disadvantages compared to the British. They had no national government, no national army or navy, no financial system, no banks, no established credit, and no functioning government departments, such as a treasury. The Congress tried to handle administrative affairs through legislative committees, which proved inefficient. The state governments were themselves brand new and officials had no administrative experience. In peacetime the colonies relied heavily on ocean travel and shipping, but that was now shut down by the British blockade and the Americans had to rely on slow overland travel.However, the Americans had multiple advantages that in the long run outweighed the initial disadvantages they faced. The Americans had a large prosperous population that depended not on imports but on local production for food and most supplies, while the British were mostly shipped in from across the ocean. The British faced a vast territory far larger than Britain or France, located at a far distance from home ports. Most of the Americans lived on farms distant from the seaportsâthe British could capture any port but that did not give them control over the hinterland. They were on their home ground, had a smoothly functioning, well organized system of local and state governments, newspapers and printers, and internal lines of communications. They had a long-established system of local militia, previously used to combat the French and Native Americans, with companies and an officer corps that could form the basis of local militias, and provide a training ground for the national army created by Congress.Pole and Greene, eds. Companion to the American Revolution, ch. 36â39.Motivation was a major asset. The Patriots wanted to win; over 200,000 fought in the war; 25,000 died. The British expected the Loyalists to do much of the fighting, but they did much less than expected. The British also hired German mercenaries to do much of their fighting.At the onset of the war, the Americans had no major international allies. Battles such as the Battle of Bennington, the Battles of Saratoga and even defeats such as the Battle of GermantownTrevelyan, p. 249. proved decisive in gaining the attention and support of powerful European nations such as France and Spain, who moved from covertly supplying the Americans with weapons and supplies, to overtly supporting them militarily, moving the war to a global stage.Ketchum (1997), pp. 405â48.David Allison, The American Revolution: A World War (2018)The new Continental Army suffered significantly from a lack of an effective training regime, and largely inexperienced officers and sergeants. The inexperience of its officers was compensated for in part by a few senior officers. The Americans solved their training dilemma during their stint in Winter Quarters at Valley Forge, where they were relentlessly drilled and trained by General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the famed Prussian General Staff. He taught the Continental Army the essentials of military discipline, drills, tactics and strategy, and wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual.Philander D. Chase. "Steuben, Friedrich Wilhelm von";American National Biography Online (2000).Accessed January 29, 2015. When the Army emerged from Valley Forge, it proved its ability to equally match the British troops in battle when they fought a successful strategic action at the Battle of Monmouth.Ferling, John (2007), pp. 294â95"File:Population Density in the American Colonies 1775.gif|thumb|Population density in the American ColoniesAmerican ColoniesWhen the war began, the 13 colonies lacked a professional army or navy. Each colony sponsored local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time, were reluctant to travel far from home and thus were unavailable for extended operations, and lacked the training and discipline of soldiers with more experience. If properly used, however, their numbers could help the Continental armies overwhelm smaller British forces, as at the battles of Concord, Bennington and Saratoga, and the siege of Boston. Both sides used partisan warfare but the Americans effectively suppressed Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area.Seeking to coordinate military efforts, the Continental Congress established a regular army on June 14, 1775, and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in progress, and Washington used both his regulars and state militia throughout the war.Three current branches of the United States Military trace their institutional roots to the American Revolutionary War; the United States Army comes from the Continental Army, formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775. The United States Navy recognizes October 13, 1775 as the date of its official establishment, the passage of the resolution of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia that created the Continental Navy.WEB,weblink Establishment of the Navy, 13 October 1775, United States Navy, November 5, 2009, The United States Marine Corps links to the Continental Marines of the war, formed by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775. However, in 1783 both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded.

Intelligence and espionage

Soldiers and sailors

At the beginning of 1776, Washington commanded 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias.Crocker (2006), p. 51. About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militiamen for the Revolutionary cause in the eight years of the war, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at one time.About 55,000 sailors served aboard American privateers during the war.WEB,weblink Privateers or Merchant Mariners help win the Revolutionary War, Usmm.org, May 8, 2013, They used 1,700 ships, and they captured 2,283 enemy ships. John Paul Jones became the first great American naval hero, capturing HMS Drake on April 24, 1778, the first victory for any American military vessel in British waters.Higginbotham (1983), pp. 331â46.Armies were small by European standards of the era, largely attributable, on the American side, to limitations such as lack of powder and other logistical capabilities; and, on the British side, to the difficulty of transporting troops across the Atlantic, as well as the dependence on local supplies, which the Patriots tried to cut off. The largest force Washington commanded was certainly under 17,000,Boatner (1974), p. 264. and may have been no more than 13,000 troops, and even the combined American and French forces at the siege of Yorktown amounted to only about 19,000.Duffy, Christopher (2005). Military Experience in the Age of Reason. London: Routledge. {{ISBN|0203976851}}. p. 13. In the original 1987 edition, p. 17. By comparison, Duffy notes that in an era when European rulers were generally revising their forces downward, in favor of a size that could be most effectively controlled (the very different perspective of mass conscript armies came later, during the French Revolutionary and then the Napoleonic Wars), the largest army that Frederick the Great ever led into battle was 65,000 men (at Prague in 1757), and at other times he commanded between 23,000 and 50,000 men, considering the latter the most effective number.

George Washington's roles

General Washington assumed five main roles during the war.R. Don Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition (1985) ch 3First, he designed the overall strategy of the war, in cooperation with Congress. The goal was always independence. When France entered the war, he worked closely with the soldiers it sent â they were decisive in the great victory at Yorktown in 1781.Robert Selig, March to victory: Washington, Rochambeau, and the Yorktown Campaign of 1781 (2005) online.Second, he provided leadership of troops against the main British forces in 1775â77 and again in 1781. He lost many of his battles, but he never surrendered his army during the war, and he continued to fight the British relentlessly until the war's end. Washington worked hard to develop a successful espionage system to detect British locations and plans. In 1778, he formed the Culper Ring to spy on enemy movements in New York City. In 1780 it discovered Benedict Arnold was a traitor.Alexander Rose, Washington's Spies (2006) pp. 258â61. The British put a low value on intelligence, and its operations were of poor quality until 1780, when it finally inserted some spies with Congress and with Washington's command. Even then, however, British commanders ignored or downplayed threats that were revealed. The most serious intelligence failure came in 1781 when top commanders were unaware that The American and French armies at both left the Northeast and marched down to Yorktown, where they outnumbered Cornwallis by more than 2 to 1.Roger Kaplan, "The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution." William and Mary Quarterly (1990) 47#1: 115â38. onlineThird, he was charged selecting and guiding the generals. In June 1776, Congress made its first attempt at running the war effort with the committee known as "Board of War and Ordnance", succeeded by the Board of War in July 1777, a committee which eventually included members of the military.BOOK, William Gardner Bell, Commanding Generals and Chiefs of Staff, 1775â2005: Portraits & Biographical Sketches of the United States Army's Senior Officer,weblink 2005, 3â4, 9780160873300, Douglas S. Freeman, and Richard Harwell, Washington (1968) p. 42. The command structure of the armed forces was a hodgepodge of Congressional appointees (and Congress sometimes made those appointments without Washington's input) with state-appointments filling the lower ranks. The results of his general staff were mixed, as some of his favorites never mastered the art of command, such as John Sullivan. Eventually, he found capable officers such as Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, Henry Knox (chief of artillery), and Alexander Hamilton (chief of staff). The American officers never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777), and Yorktown (1781) came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops.Higginbotham, George Washington and the American Military Tradition (1985) ch 3Fourth he took charge of training the army and providing supplies, from food to gunpowder to tents. He recruited regulars and assigned Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff, to train them. He transformed Washington's army into a disciplined and effective force.Arnold Whitridge, "Baron von Steuben, Washington's Drillmaster." History Today (July 1976) 26#7 pp. 429â36. The war effort and getting supplies to the troops were under the purview of Congress, but Washington pressured the Congress to provide the essentials. There was never nearly enough.E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775â1783 (1990) p. 220.Washington's fifth and most important role in the war effort was the embodiment of armed resistance to the Crown, serving as the representative man of the Revolution. His long-term strategy was to maintain an army in the field at all times, and eventually this strategy worked. His enormous personal and political stature and his political skills kept Congress, the army, the French, the militias, and the states all pointed toward a common goal. Furthermore, he permanently established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs by voluntarily resigning his commission and disbanding his army when the war was won, rather than declaring himself monarch. He also helped to overcome the distrust of a standing army by his constant reiteration that well-disciplined professional soldiers counted for twice as much as poorly trained and led militias.Edward G. Lengel, General George Washington: A Military Life (2005) pp. 365â71.

African Americans

File:Soldiers at the siege of Yorktown (1781), by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger.png|thumb|1780 drawing of American soldiers from the Yorktown campaign shows a black infantryman from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment1st Rhode Island RegimentAfrican Americansâslave and freeâserved on both sides during the war. The British recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and promised freedom to those who served by act of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation. Because of manpower shortages, George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; many slaves were promised freedom for serving. Some of the men promised freedom were sent back to their masters, after the war was over, out of political convenience. Another all-black unit came from Saint-Domingue with French colonial forces. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause.Kaplan and Kaplan (1989), pp. 64â69.BOOK, Leslie Alexander, Encyclopedia of African American History,weblink 2010, ABC-CLIO, 356, 978-1-85109-774-6, Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply moved off in the chaos. For instance, in South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves (30% of the enslaved population) fled, migrated or died during the disruption of the war.Peter Kolchin, American Slavery: 1619â1877, New York: Hill and Wang, 1994, p. 73 This greatly disrupted plantation production during and after the war. When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves belonging to Loyalists.Kolchin, p. 73 Altogether, the British evacuated nearly 20,000 blacks at the end of the war. More than 3,000 of them were freedmen and most of these were resettled in Nova Scotia; other blacks were sold in the West Indies.BOOK, William Weir, The Encyclopedia of African American Military History,weblink 2004, Prometheus Books, 31â32, 978-1-61592-831-6, JOURNAL, Pybus, Cassandra, 2005, Jefferson's Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution, The William and Mary Quarterly, 62, 2, 243â264, 10.2307/3491601, 3491601,

American Indians

(File:ContinentalArmy LeffertsWatercolor.jpg|thumb|A watercolor painting depicting a variety of Continental Army soldiers)File:Couder Yorktown Versailles.JPG|thumb|Washington and the Comte de RochambeauComte de RochambeauMost American Indians east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many tribes were divided over the question of how to respond to the conflict. A few tribes were on friendly terms with the other Americans, but most Indians opposed the union of the Colonies as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Indians fought on the British side, with the largest group coming from the Iroquois tribes, who fielded around 1,500 men.Greene and Pole (1999), p. 393; Boatner (1974), p. 545. The powerful Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the conflict, whatever side they took; the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations sided with the British. Members of the Mohawk nation fought on both sides. Many Tuscarora and Oneida sided with the colonists. The Continental Army sent the Sullivan Expedition on raids throughout New York to cripple the Iroquois tribes that had sided with the British. Mohawk leaders Joseph Louis Cook and Joseph Brant sided with the Americans and the British respectively, and this further exacerbated the split.Early in July 1776, a major action occurred in the fledgling conflict when the Cherokee allies of Britain attacked the western frontier areas of North Carolina. Their defeat resulted in a splintering of the Cherokee settlements and people, and was directly responsible for the rise of the Chickamauga Cherokee, bitter enemies of the Colonials who carried on a frontier war for decades following the end of hostilities with Britain.John Finger, Tennessee Frontiers: Three Regions in Transition (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001), pp. 43â64.Creek and Seminole allies of Britain fought against Americans in Georgia and South Carolina. In 1778, a force of 800 Creeks destroyed American settlements along the Broad River in Georgia. Creek warriors also joined Thomas Brown's raids into South Carolina and assisted Britain during the Siege of Savannah.BOOK, Ward, Harry M., The war for independence and the transformation of American society,weblink March 25, 2011, 1999, Psychology Press, 978-1-85728-656-4, 198, Many Indians were involved in the fighting between Britain and Spain on the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi Riverâmostly on the British side. Thousands of Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws fought in major battles such as the Battle of Fort Charlotte, the Battle of Mobile, and the Siege of Pensacola.BOOK, O'Brien, Greg, Pre-removal Choctaw history: exploring new paths,weblink March 25, 2011, April 30, 2008, University of Oklahoma Press, 978-0-8061-3916-6, 123â26,

Race and class

Pybus (2005) estimates that about 20,000 slaves defected to or were captured by the British, of whom about 8,000 died from disease or wounds or were recaptured by the Patriots. The British took some 12,000 at the end of the war; of these 8000 remained in slavery. Including those who left during the war, a total of about 8000 to 10,000 slaves gained freedom. About 4000 freed slaves went to Nova Scotia and 1200 blacks remained slaves.John N. Grant, "Black Immigrants into Nova Scotia, 1776â1815." Journal of Negro History (1973): 253â270. in JSTORJames W. St. G. Walker, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783â1870 (1992).Baller (2006) examines family dynamics and mobilization for the Revolution in central Massachusetts. He reports that warfare and the farming culture were sometimes incompatible. Militiamen found that living and working on the family farm had not prepared them for wartime marches and the rigors of camp life. Rugged individualism conflicted with military discipline and regimentation. A man's birth order often influenced his military recruitment, as younger sons went to war and older sons took charge of the farm. A person's family responsibilities and the prevalent patriarchy could impede mobilization. Harvesting duties and family emergencies pulled men home regardless of the sergeant's orders. Some relatives might be Loyalists, creating internal strains. On the whole, historians conclude the Revolution's effect on patriarchy and inheritance patterns favored egalitarianism.William Baller, "Farm Families and the American Revolution," Journal of Family History (2006) 31(1): 28â44. {{ISSN|0363-1990}}. Fulltext: online in EBSCO.McDonnell (2006) shows a grave complication in Virginia's mobilization of troops was the conflicting interests of distinct social classes, which tended to undercut a unified commitment to the Patriot cause. The Assembly balanced the competing demands of elite slave-owning planters, the middling yeomen (some owning a few slaves), and landless indentured servants, among other groups. The Assembly used deferments, taxes, military service substitute, and conscription to resolve the tensions. Unresolved class conflict, however, made these laws less effective. There were violent protests, many cases of evasion, and large-scale desertion, so that Virginia's contributions came at embarrassingly low levels. With the British invasion of the state in 1781, Virginia was mired in class division as its native son, George Washington, made desperate appeals for troops.Michael A. McDonnell, "Class War: Class Struggles During the American Revolution in Virginia", William and Mary Quarterly 2006 63(2): 305â44. {{ISSN|0043-5597}} Fulltext: online at History Cooperative.

Greene, Jack P. and Pole, J.R., eds. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1991; reprint 1999. {{ISBN|1557865477}}. Collection of essays focused on political and social history.

Gilbert, Alan. Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. {{ISBN|9780226293073}}.

Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763â1789. Northeastern University Press, 1983. {{ISBN|0930350448}}. Overview of military topics; online in ACLS History E-book Project.

Morrissey, Brendan. Monmouth Courthouse 1778: The Last Great Battle in the North. Osprey Publishing, 2004. {{ISBN|1841767727}}.

Jensen, Merrill. The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763â1776. (2004)

Kaplan, Sidney and Emma Nogrady Kaplan. The Black Presence in the Era of the American Revolution. Amherst, Massachusetts: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. {{ISBN|0870236636}}.

Riddick, John F. The History of British India: a Chronology. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. {{ISBN|9780313322808}}.

Savas, Theodore P. and Dameron, J. David. A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution. New York: Savas Beatie LLC, 2006. {{ISBN|193271412X}}.

Schama, Simon. (Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution), New York, NY: Ecco/HarperCollins, 2006

O'Shaughnessy, Andrew Jackson. The Men who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (Yale UP, 2014).

Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976 ({{ISBN|0195020138}}); revised University of Michigan Press, 1990 ({{ISBN|0472064312}}). Collection of essays.

Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War. Indiana University Press, 1977. {{ISBN|9780253280299}}.

Weintraub, Stanley. Iron Tears: America's Battle for Freedom, Britain's Quagmire: 1775â1783. New York: Free Press, 2005 (a division of Simon & Schuster). {{ISBN|0743226879}}. An account of the British politics on the conduct of the war.

Reference literature

These are some of the standard works about the war in general that are not listed above; books about specific campaigns, battles, units, and individuals can be found in those articles.

Billias, George Athan. George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership (1994) scholarly studies of key generals on each side.

Black, Jeremy. "Could the British Have Won the American War of Independence?." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. (Fall 1996), Vol. 74 Issue 299, pp 145â154. online video lecture, uses Real Player

Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent. (1854â78), vol. 7â10.

Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. Penguin, 1998 (paperback reprint).

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, and Ryerson, Richard A., eds. The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2006) 5 volume paper and online editions; 1000 entries by 150 experts, covering all topics

Frey, Sylvia R. The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period (University of Texas Press, 1981).

Hibbert, Christopher. (Redcoats and Rebels: The American Revolution through British Eyes). New York: Norton, 1990. {{ISBN|039302895X}}.

BOOK, Savas, Theodore, J. David Dameron, Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution,weblink 2006, Savas Beatie, 978-1-61121-011-8, Contains a detailed listing of American, French, British, German, and Loyalist regiments; indicates when they were raised, the main battles, and what happened to them. Also includes the main warships on both sides, And all the important battles.

Simms, Brendan. Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714â1783 (2008) 802 pp. detailed coverage of diplomacy from London viewpoint

Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution (1989), newly drawn maps emphasizing the movement of military units

Ward, Christopher. The War of the Revolution. (2 volumes. New York: Macmillan, 1952.) History of land battles in North America.

Wood, W. J. Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775â1781. {{ISBN|0306813297}} (2003 paperback reprint). Analysis of tactics of a dozen battles, with emphasis on American military leadership.